


What Binds Us

by Ttttrickster (iscatterthemintimeandspace)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cannibalism, Case Fic, Gabriel comes back, M/M, Pagan! Gabriel, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fic, Resurrection, not gory, sam and dean to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 12:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iscatterthemintimeandspace/pseuds/Ttttrickster
Summary: Prompt: Kali still has a vial of Gabriel's blood, so who's to say there wasn't enough grace in that vial to revive Gabriel? Not to full archangel status of course, if anything, he's now without his angelic powers and Kali has to resort to pagan methods of healing him. So Gabe is now a full on pagan god, but his life depends on eating people, which he hates. He's also sort of under Kali's control, which is another bummer. Insert asking the Winchester's for help XD





	What Binds Us

Human flesh tasted awful.

Some parts were tough and stringy, other parts too fatty and greasy for his liking. He hadn’t been much a fan of meat to begin with, but now that he had to eat it to live, day in and day out, he found he hated it.

Kali didn’t seem concerned with his discomfort. In fact, she expected him to be grateful for bringing him back to life. After all, she’d been eating humans as long as she’d been alive, and she was fine. He’d get used to it, she insisted. Gabriel wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

He tried breaking it with his grace, but found he couldn’t access it, like it was being constrained. Without his mojo to depend on, his options were limited. In the small amount of time that Kali let him out of her sight, he tried to research someway to break the hold she had on him, for any alternative he could find for his current situation, but so far, he’d found nothing. That wasn’t surprising. He had never been a scholar, had never memorized every scroll in the heavenly library as Michael or Raphael had, nor had he had time during his pagan period to search out every obscure bit of lore.

But he could think of three people who did so regularly.

Gabriel did not relish the thought of asking the Winchesters for help. Even if they had parted on good terms (at least in his mind), Sam and Dean might not want to help him get free. He was counting on the brotherly affection that Cas might have as his ace in the hole, although he wasn’t too sure of that either. He had no other choice. Despite all his long years on Earth, there was no one who cared about him enough to risk the wrath of a goddess to spring him free. So, Winchesters it was.

He planned his escape carefully, waiting until Kali and her minions were distracted with some festival and weren’t paying quite as much attention to him. He knew he couldn’t be gone for long, that the blood Kali had of his would lead her right to him if she noticed his absence.

He slipped out of her compound, getting as far away as he could on foot, which was the next town over. He couldn’t fly, his mojo was on the fritz, so he resorted to the only thing he had left: prayer.

Gabriel didn’t know if Cas would answer him, but he would give it a shot.

‘Help me, Castiel angel of the lord, you are my only hope.’

He waited for a response, but nothing happened.

‘I forgot you don’t get pop culture references,” Gabriel amended, clasping his hands together for effect. ‘ It’s Gabriel. I’m not dead, but I need your help. Please. I think I’m in Oklahoma, somewhere close to the Texas border. Bring those two lumberjacks you call friends.’

He found a greasy spoon dinner, bought himself a cup of coffee and waited. It was an hour before he saw the Impala hurdling down the road towards the diner. It parked out front, and Gabriel watched as the three men climbed out of the car.

Only moments later, two Winchester and a fallen angel squeezed into his booth, Cas sliding into the space next to him.

“So you’re not dead, shoulda figured that one,” Dean stated, his arms crossed over the table.

“I was dead,” Gabriel retorted, holding his mug out for the waitress to refill as she walked by their table. “I was brought back, which is why I need your help.”

“You seem to be doing just fine,” Dean fired back at him. The waitress brought over three more mugs, and filled their cups with steaming black coffee.

“If you count eating people as being fine, then yeah I’m just dandy,” Gabriel replied, taking a sip of his coffee.

“What do you mean “eating people”?” Sam put in, giving Gabriel a strange look.

“Not in the fun way,” Gabriel quipped. “In the “that guy would taste great slathered in BBQ sauce” kind of way. Kali brought me back using the blood she took from me before I died. Apparently it had enough of my grace to be able to recall me, but it wasn’t enough. She used some pagan mojo to heal me but it came with a price. Whatever she did, I need human flesh to survive. That’s why I need your help. I need you to fix whatever she did to me.”

“Why don’t you use your grace?” Dean asked.

“You think I would call you two numbskulls if I had access to my grace?” Gabriel scoffed at him. “No, whatever she did, I can’t use it. I’ve tried.”

“Where is she getting the people for you to eat?” Sam butted in, his eyes piercing Gabriel’s as if he was willing him to tell the truth, but Gabriel had no reason to lie.

“I assume from human sacrifices. I don’t ask too many questions, I don’t want to know. It just shows up at my door and I eat it,” Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t want to eat it, but if I don’t, I go through withdrawal. It’s not pretty.”

“You think it’s a pagan binding spell?” Castiel spoke, finally looking up at his brother. “Tied to your blood?”

“I don’t know.” Gabriel shook his head. “I’ve seen her use them before, but this is different and I can’t exactly go looking for a way to break it without alerting her. I’m stretching it as it is being here. If I don’t get back soon, she’ll know I’m missing. You guys are my only hope.”

Sam, Dean and Cas exchanged glances. “Will you excuse us?” Sam said, getting up from the booth.

“By all means,” Gabriel replied, resisting the urge to to roll his eyes. “Take all the time you need.”

Cas and Dean slid out of the booth after Sam, and together they made their way to the parking lot. Gabriel watched them argue, making up dialogue in his head as he watched Dean yell and pace. Sam was clearly trying to be the rational one, as always, but from the vein throbbing on his forehead, Gabriel could tell he was struggling. Cas was leaning against the hood of the Impala, his arms crossed over his chest, brow furrowed as he watched the Winchesters argue.

Gabriel sighed. His time was running short and he needed to get back. He tossed some money down on the table, and slid across the bench, exiting the diner and joining the boys outside.

“He killed me, Sammy! Hundreds of times!” Dean was shouting.

“He died to save us from Lucifer!” Sam protested. “He needs help, Dean!”

Dean snorted. “Just because you’ve got a hard-on for the guy-”

“As much as I’d love to stay and hear the rest of that statement,” Gabriel interrupted. “I need to get going. Are you going to help me or not?”

“We’ll help you,” Sam decided, glaring at his brother. “Give us a few days.”

Dean didn’t say a word, just got into his car and slammed the door hotly. Castiel looked between the Impala and Sam, looking almost as if he wanted to follow Dean. He stood there watching as Sam took a step closer to Gabriel.

“I mean it,” Sam told him. “We’re going to help. Dean… Dean hasn’t forgiven you for the Tuesday thing, but I… We’ll come up with a plan. We’ll figure it out.”

He gave Gabriel a small smile as he pulled open the door of the car, and slid in. Cas said nothing to him as he climbed in after him. Gabriel watched them pull away, unable to smother the smile when Dean gunned the engine and left thick black tire treads on the asphalt.

Gabriel shook his head, as he began his trek back to Kali’s compound. He needed a miracle.

It took him another hour to walk back but Kali hadn’t even noticed he was missing. He slipped back in the compound, strolling through the garden for a while before entering the palace. Everyone was in such a tizzy he hadn’t been missed. He walked back to the room he shared with Kali, only to find the door locked from the inside.

Kali answered a couple minutes later, looking flushed and disheveled. Gabriel smiled at her, pretending that the room didn’t reek of sex when he walked in. Kali was wearing her red silk robe, and her hair was mused as she regarded him.

“Where have you been all day?” she wanted to know.

“In the gardens,” Gabriel responded, dropping down in the chaise lounge near the window. “It really is a labyrinth out there. I thought that you were going to have to send out a search party to find me.”

Finally Kali smiled at him, and all the anxiety he was feeling at the thought of getting caught faded away.

“Are you hungry?” she asked him sweetly, crossing the room to drop down into his lap.

He withheld a grimace, praying that it wouldn’t show on his face. There could be no doubt in Kali’s mind, not while she still had his blood in her possession. If the Winchesters had any chance in hell at rescuing him, he had to make Kali believe he was completely under her control.

“Starving.”

~~~~

Gabriel didn’t know how the Winchesters had survived this long, resurrections aside. They were supposedly the best hunters in the business, but Gabriel wasn’t so sure. Their plan, which had apparently consisted of busting into a compound filled with highly dangerous deities and demi-gods with nothing but a couple angel blades and their wits, had failed, and Sam, Dean and Gabriel had ended up tied to a stake in the courtyard with Kali circling them murderously.

“You’re lucky you’re so good looking,” Gabriel hissed at them under his breath, struggling against the ropes that held them captive. “Because you’re idiots. I asked you to help me, not get me killed again!”

Dean glared at him, but Sam remained solemn. “We’ve got in under control.” he told Gabriel, his eyes darting back and forth between Kali and her minions.

“Because I’m sure getting caught and tied up was part of the plan,” Gabriel bit back. “You two-”

Sam cut him off with a harsh whisper. “Yeah us two…”

Gabriel blinked at him, rolling the words over in his head. Where was Cas? He looked around the room, trying to find any sign of his brother, while Kali’s apostates were arguing over whether to torture them, or eat them.

Suddenly Gabriel felt it, his grace returning like a tsunami, washing over him like the force of a charging rhino. Kali looked at him in horror as his eyes glowed gold, and he snapped the ropes around him like they were made of paper. Whatever Cas had done had released the hold Kali had through his blood, and now that he had access to his grace, he was able to identify what she had done to him. He couldn’t believe it was so simple.

She’d tricked him.

There was no spell to make him eat people, it was a simple lie and slight of hand, which combined with the binding of his grace through the blood spell. He had no doubt that the withdrawal he’d been feeling had been an effect of the blood binding spell now that it was clear to him what she’d been doing.

He advanced on her, eyes flashing as his grace flowed through him. Kali stood her ground, her arms held stiffly at her sides. She looked every inch a goddess to him, unrepentant and wrathful even cornered. She’d seen first hand what an enraged archangel could do, had been the only survivor of his brother’s massacre at the Elysian Fields, and yet she wasn’t making any moves to get away from him. In that moment, Gabriel admired her. She tricked the Trickster.

Gabriel knew that Sam and Dean expected some sort of retribution for Kali, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Instead he started laughing.

“You got me good,” he chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “All that nonsense about eating people when it was only a blood binding spell. How did you even come up with that?”

Kali cocked her head at him, her arms still at the ready. “So… you’re not going to kill me then?”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Kill you? Why would I kill the person that is going to provide me with the most entertainment I’ve had in years? Oh, you’re going to be looking over your shoulder for the next couple millenia. What fun would simply killing you be when I can prank you instead?”

He turned to Sam and Dean, who had untangled themselves from the ropes he had snapped. He could tell Dean was disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to see something die, but Sam offered his a small smile, and Gabriel swore he saw a twinkle in his eye.

Gabriel had always liked Sam more than he had Dean. There was something about Sam that called out to him, that made him want to stop and take notice of the man. He almost wished it was a purely physical thing, that would have made what he felt much easier to decode, but for once, he was more interested in what lurked behind those hazel eyes of his. There was much more to Sam Winchester than just the boy with the demon blood, and Gabriel intended to find out what it was.

He followed Sam and Dean out of Kali’s compound, her acolytes suspiciously absent from the corridors. Gabriel suspected that they had made themselves scarce in light of his newly returned powers. Despite what he’d said to Kali, he didn’t hold any sort of ill will towards them, they would get their just desserts at a later date. Revenge, after all, was a dish best served cold.

The Impala was parked at the outskirts of the woods, and Cas was leaning against it, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited.

“I don’t know how I can thank you guys.” Gabriel began, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I-”

Dean cut him off as he walked around the car. “No chick-flick moments,” he reminded him, pulling open the Impala’s door and sliding in behind the wheel. Clearly the conversation was over.

Castiel followed, although he offered Gabriel a look that he recognized as as close to a smile as he was going to get out of his brother. Gabriel wasn’t worried, he knew they would be talking soon.

Sam hesitated, suddenly looking almost coltish in the way he moved towards the car.

“I’ll take that thank you,” he said with a smirk that had Gabriel’s insides fluttering. “You could start with dinner.”

Gabriel couldn’t say no to that.

 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to WachyPena for the amazing prompt and the equally amazing fanart for this fic!
> 
>  
> 
> Send me prompts!


End file.
